Needles
by runaway ballista
Summary: [CGH] Genma goes to visit Hayate in the hospital, but he always seems touchy about the needles. Implied GenHaya.


Just a little GenHaya-y fic I jotted down at 1-2am the other night. Beta'd by dansunedisco and written with Penbrydd in mind, because his Genma rocks my world. Enjoy!

_Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me; I just borrow it sometimes. The setting and characters belong to Kishimoto Masashi._

**Needles**

"Hey, kid."

Hayate turned his head at the voice and the shallow tapping that followed it - fingers drumming lightly on the wall. One Shiranui Genma was standing in the doorway with that loose-limbed posture he always seemed to carry himself with, senbon resting lightly between his lips. Genma always called Hayate that - _kid_ - despite the fact that Hayate was well on his way to adulthood now. Hayate just nodded where he lay, coughing quietly.

Genma only hovered by the door for a moment before rolling his wrists with an audible cracking sound and crossing over to sit at the edge of Hayate's hospital bed. The kid was always in and out of the hospital for one reason or another, what with his frequent on-and-off illness, mission injuries, and routine bloodwork (or whatever the hell it was; Genma had long stopped asking). He wasn't even sure what it was this time; he'd only just come off a mission to hear from Hayate's father that the kid was back in the hospital. So naturally, Genma had gone to visit him first thing after getting a good shower and washing off all the blood, grime, and dirt from the mission. It had been a messy one.

"Hi, Genma," Hayate croaked back, his voice sounding dry and crack - and as Genma listened a little more closely, he could hear the rattle to Hayate's breath. His face didn't change, but almost automatically, his mind began cycling through the possibilities. Maybe he'd had an asthma attack, or maybe he'd used that damned cough suppression jutsu and the backlash had been too much. Genma hated it when Hayate used that jutsu, but the kid always insisted he'd be fine. Hell, he'd seen Hayate say that in between coughing up blood and nearly vomiting it, too - if there was one thing to be said about Hayate, it was that he was as stubborn as an ass.

Genma barely bit back a sigh, but it slid out through his nose anyway. The senbon bobbed up and down tightly, just a little, more of a wavering motion than anything. "What happened to you this time, huh?" He reached over to smooth back Hayate's mussed hair, crinkled and snarly from what had probably been at least forty-eight hours of lying on a pillow. "You look like roadkill."

"I always look like roadkill," Hayate mumbled, reaching up with one arm to rub at his eyes, and he yawned, briefly. "I came in for the bloodwork I was scheduled for," he started to explain, after a moment. "But I was sick when I came in and they wanted to keep me here." He paused, wavering slightly at the expectant look that Genma was giving him, and sighed. "I nearly fainted when they were drawing blood," he muttered, fixing his dark eyes on the far wall instead of Genma, who clucked his tongue audibly in disapproval. Hayate's half-lidded gaze shifted to him in a dull glare.

"Don't you start. It's not my fault I'm sick." His tone was almost snappish, as much as it could get when everything he said was so toned down, so mild, so subdued. Genma held up his hands in defense, shaking his head.

"Hey, hey, chill out. I know it's not your fault. You know I don't blame you. And I'm not going to say that you should be careful and take good care of yourself, because that's your dad's gig, not mine." Genma lowered his hands and placed one over Hayate's, the closest one to his. "It just sucks that you're back in here, you know?"

Hayate sighed, made some sort of low grumbling noise, and closed his eyes for a few moments. Genma patted his hand a bit heartily, straightening up, and the kid winced slightly. "Careful," he mumbled, nodding to his arm. "IV."

Genma's eyes automatically flickered to the soft, vulnerable spot behind Hayate's elbow, the pale skin bruised purple from regular abuse from needles and general probing, and he flinched slightly at the sight of the needle taped into Hayate's arm, making a face. He shook his head, looking away, and tried to find something more pleasant to settle his eyes on. "Eugh," he muttered. "Sorry, kid. Nothing personal. Just hate looking at that. Fucking hate needles."

Hayate raised an eyebrow in a dull parody of a skeptical expression. "What?" He coughed, turning his head to the side slightly, and sniffled. "Your specialty is spitting needles at people. Throwing them. How can you hate needles?"

"I put them in _other_ people, not me," Genma said pointedly, and perhaps a bit tersely. "Fuck if I ever want one of those things in _me_. Besides, those are different. Senbon don't... suck things out of you." He shuddered lightly.

"You make it sound like it's some sort of parasite," Hayate remarked, his voice a drier rasp than usual. The senbon in Genma's mouth straightened as his jaw tightened slightly.

"Well, it sure as hell feels like one."

Hayate gave him a bemused look before glancing back down briefly at the needle in his arm. He'd gotten fairly used to needles throughout his life, considering all his exposure to them. But Genma seemed to have some sort of irrationally extreme discomfort about needles, for an adult shinobi who'd killed countless men with them. "Have you ever really had blood drawn before?"

"Once," Genma shifted on the bed a little uneasily, swallowing. "Never want to have it happen again. I don't know how you do it every _month_, kid. Damn near amazing." He let his gaze settle back on Hayate's pale, peaky face, the large dark eyes staring back at him blankly.

"Amazing?" Hayate repeated, almost thoughtfully, and he gave a slight shrug. "If you say so. I don't do anything. I just mostly sit here while they poke me with sharp pointy things all day." He let out a long breath, a wheezing exhale, and tried not to cough. "If you're so scared of needles, then why do you use them all the time?"

Genma frowned slightly, as if annoyed. "I didn't say I was _scared_ of needles. I just said - "

"You're scared of needles," Hayate said bluntly. "You _are_. You can't even look at my arm and that's not in _you_, that's in me. Why would you pick a weapon specialty that makes you so uncomfortable?"

Genma didn't answer right away, instead plucking the senbon neatly from his mouth and rolling it between his thumb and forefinger as he examined it idly in the dim light of the hospital room. "They're not the same thing, kid," he said at last, watching the sharp point glint in the light. "Not the same at all. These are designed for killing. What you've got in your arm..."

"Could probably do the same job if I wanted it to," Hayate finished the sentence for him, stubbornly. The kid was awfully hard to persuade once he was set in something. Genma just tried to shrug it off, popping the senbon back into his mouth. Hayate didn't seem satisfied with the lack of a proper answer from Genma, his jaw setting along with his adamant tone of voice. "They're basically the same. Look." He reached up with his good arm and tugged the senbon out of Genma's mouth. The older man let him take it, shaking his head as Hayate lined it up carefully along the needle in his arm. "See? Look, Genma. Come on, just for a second, or I'm not giving this back."

Genma bit back the retort that bubbled up to his lips immediately - _go on, keep it, I've got dozens more_ - and sighed, forcing himself to redirect his gaze down to Hayate's tapped arm. He suppressed a flinch at the sight of the IV needle buried deep in his arm, the purple bruising discoloring the pale skin, and tried to see what Hayate was attempting to prove to him.

"They're the _same_, Genma."

"All right, all right," Genma conceded, just a little too easily, and reached down to delicately pluck the senbon out of Hayate's grasp. "Fine, fine, they're the same." Hayate just delivered up a mildly resentful look, as though he were being patronized and hardly appreciated it. He almost looked sulky. Genma thought it was just kind of cute and overall, ineffective.

"So why, then?" Hayate demanded. "You didn't tell me that. Why would you use something you're afraid of as a weapon? That doesn't make any sense."

Genma bit down on the senbon again, reaching out to ruffle Hayate's hair, but then thought the better of it and rested his broad palm on Hayate's narrow, bony shoulder. "You know, maybe I'll actually tell you one day. Explain it all in full." He drew back, sitting up straight. "But now's not the time, and this isn't the place. When you're older, maybe." Hayate would have sworn that Genma was teasing him, but he was finding it hard to detect the usual light, mocking tone in his voice. Hayate gave him such a surly look then that Genma couldn't help but chuckle and reach forward to muss up the kid's hair this time, and he got to his feet slowly, lanky legs unfolding to their full height.

"I'll tell you another time," he promised as he swaggered for the door, half-grinning at the pale patient on the bed behind him. "Rest up, kid."


End file.
